A prActicAl guide Benchmarking in european Higher education

Some examples follow from the ESMU Benchmarking programme.
If the focus is on benchmarking the human resource management, background
material will be needed such as the institution’s mission statement, a
strategy document, and an organisational chart to understand clearly how
the HRM strategy is related to the overall strategy. Benchmarking HRM will
for example look at what mechanisms are used to measure the HR strategy’s
implementation and effectiveness (e.g. in terms of attracting top scholars, or
improving the gender balance), who has responsibility for ensuring that the
HR policy complies with legislative requirements, and the level of staff and
trade unions’ involvement in determining policies and procedures. Central to
benchmarking HRM will also be issues such as the balance between central
and devolved HR activity and how to ensure implementation of HR policies
(nature of control or support mechanisms to deal with variations in local
management performance and capability), how the university identifies its
overall requirements for staff development and matches this with the needs
of individuals, how training and development (induction programmes, coaching,
individual study, personal counselling, on the job learning) are provided and
how their effectiveness is reviewed.
A benchmarking exercise on external funding will look at the culture developed
throughout the institution to actively seek appropriate ways of increasing
income, the professional expertise needed to develop such activities (intellectual
property, fund raising, patenting, risk capital, market intelligence
gathering), adopted policies for the distribution of income generated through
these activities, or reward structures and contract terms for commercial
activity.
Looking at student services, a benchmarking exercise will address, for
example, the aims and objectives of the support services relating to the
university’s mission statement, how the provision of support services is
organised, the structural relationship between the various services, the
range of services available to meet identified students’ needs (housing, disabled
students, child care, financial help, international students).
A Practical Guide - Benchmarking in European Higher Education
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